The production of space-dyed yarns, i.e. yarns having two or more shades and/or colors on the same yarn end, is well known to the prior art. Various methods have been used by the art to produce the space-dyed effect. Wool has been treated with various chemical modifiers, such as chromates or bichromates, alkalis, and sulfonic acids or derivatives thereof, in order to impart to the treated wool different dyeing characteristics as compared to the untreated wool. See, e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,310,361, 3,352,624 and 3,481,682.
British Pat. No. 1,133,054 discloses a process for producing multicolored acrylic fiber textiles wherein each yarn end is of a single color and/or shade but the textile material itself is composed of yarns having differing colors and/or shades. The acrylonitrile textile fibers, containing acidic groups but free from basic groups, are dyed with a premetallized acid dyestuff in a bath which contains mono-or-divalent metal or ammonium salts, and then the thus dyed textile material is combined with an undyed acrylonitrile fiber containing acidic groups but free from basic groups. Thereafter, the resulting textile is dyed with a cationic or dispersed dyestuff which serves to dye the second textile material a different color from the first textile material. The mono-or-divalent metal or ammonium salt serves to increase the takeup, i.e. increases the distribution, of the premetallized dyestuff within the fiber of the first acrylonitrile textile material, thus producing particularly dark shades, and also serves to prevent staining of the first dyed acrylonitrile textile material with the second, or cationic, dyestuff during the second dyeing step.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,253,875 discloses space dyeing nylon textile material by covering selected areas thereof with a metal foil and thereafter subjecting the textile material to moist heat. The protective metal foil covering is then removed and the treated material is dyed by immersion in an anionic dye bath with the production of variable or multitoned dyeing, wherein the foil-protected areas of the nylon are less heavily hued than the exposed areas. U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,542 discloses the use of a moving roll having aligned recesses into which dye is intermittently fed by pneumatic means in order to produce novel dye effects on yarns passing therethrough. British Pat. No. 1,025,805 discloses the use of the roll wherein a single yarn or groups of yarn are intermittently deflected into a liquor supply device. U.S. Pat. No. 3,335,583 discloses a system of parallel rolls and a trough, with different colors fed at different areas along the trough and the yarn being fed obliquely to the trough in order to contact different colors. British Pat. No. 1,137,415 discloses a system wherein tensioned yarn is intermittently reciprocated transversely through a jet of dye liquor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,120,422 discloses a process wherein reactive dye is injected into various locations of a wound yarn package, which is then allowed to stand until the dye reaction occurs. U.S. Pat. No. 3,242,875 discloses a system wherein stripes are printed on a knitted fabric which is then unraveled, and the unraveled yarn is then reknitted in order to produce a novel effect on the final knitted product.